This Echo Rings
by Remy2
Summary: What do you do when you know maybe you can't help? Buffy and Spike, post-"Help".


**TITLE**: This Echo Rings (1/1)   
**AUTHOR**: Remy (remyallegory@yahoo.com)   
**CATEGORY**: BtVS; General, Vignette; Buffy, Spike   
**RATING**: PG13, if barely   
**SPOILERS**: Abstract S6; S7, "Lessons" through "Help"   
**SUMMARY**: _What do you do when you know maybe you can't help? _Buffy and Spike, post-"Help".   
**DISCLAIMER**: Not. Mine.   
**WORD COUNT**: 1398   
**NOTES**: This takes place between "Help" and "Selfless" — hence, a lack of resolution. It's just a filler vignette since we never get enough Spuffy interaction onscreen. Title is from the CD booklet for "Machina / The Machines of God" by Smashing Pumpkins (page 26). Ignore the odd structure; it's my attempt at being Eliot-y.

She hears voices, too —

Every time she carries herself down the stairway into the labyrinth that is that basement   
(where he lives…where he sleeps and cries and cuts his skin open,   
hoping this bloodletting will cleanse him of his sins);   
Every time she stomps her foot in impatience and tells him she'll be back later   
(though they both know that "later" will translate into tomorrow…the day after that…   
next week, because she is — ultimately — as useless as he is down there);   
Every night she lies awake in her bed   
(quietly crying — quietly, because then it doesn't hurt…much).

These voices say to her: _  
This is what he deserves;   
This is his penance; this is his toll for passing Go;   
This is not acceptable — put him out of his misery;   
This is someone you broke, _all by yourself _—_

Oh! what a tangled web she's weaved — a network of cobwebs clouding his mind and her heart. She wishes she could rip away these invisible chains, but they will not budge, not even for Slayer strength.

_What do you do when you know maybe you can't help?_

+

It is Monday afternoon and all the students have gone home. The permanent record in front of her is full and boring. Making a decision, she closes the manila folder and makes her way downstairs, into the black and gray basement where the walls move and the whispers — not just her mind's own, but others, too — blanket her like graveyard fog.

He is sitting perfectly still in a corner when she finds him, just like the other day.

What should she say? Nothing, nothing at all — _remember?_   
Quiet keeps him calm and   
Quiet keeps him safe.

She sits cross-legged on the floor in front of him and he acknowledges her with a sudden flicker of his eyes — a quick glance at her before escaping back into the nothingness.

But her presence _does _disturb him — that she wasn't mistaken about — and after a few moments of silence, he sighs audibly then says: "I can't see around you. You've interrupted the…no, my mistake. Some— someone is hurting, someone besides…"

And he closes his eyes and tries to stand, but she grabs his hand and tells him to sit.

"Spike, it's okay. Nothing is— there's nothing. I'm here to…y'know…to help you be quiet. Is that okay?"

He smiles slightly and rocks on his haunches for a moment, then sits and leans back against the wall, splaying his legs out before him. She winds his fingers with hers and rests their joined hands on his knee. She takes a deep breath and looks away.

The silence echoes —   
And this echo lulls her mind to sleep;   
The silence echoes, and this echo rings.

+

When she watches him from the stairway she can see him talking to ghosts. But he doesn't just talk, he gestures at them with his thin hands and looks them in the eyes, and sometimes he barks and yells, poking a crooked finger at the invisible chests in front of him until his voice cracks and the tears come.

She's only watched him a few times, but it's because of these little scenes that she wonders if maybe there is something in the basement that is making him this way — crazy.

So she asked him, once, "Is there…is there anyone else down here besides you?"

And he giggled frantically and whispered, "Silly girl, you're down in the hole, too."

"No, I mean…besides you and me. Like when I have to leave — is there a demon, or…or a spirit or something that—"

"Just me and the queen." He interrupted, then smiled. "I could make some tea."

His words were fragmented most of the time —

_Just like his mind —_

but there was so much of the old Spike in his eyes sometimes that it made it painful for her to look at him or try and hold a conversation.

She drummed his leg with her fingers in a light manner, then closed her eyes and said, "Let's just play the quiet game, instead. Okay?"

And while they were quiet she thought of ways to make him snap out of it.

+

__

Sleeping beauty awoke with a kiss.

This comes to her on Thursday as they're sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at the top of the stairway. She's convinced him to come this far with her, but he won't walk through the door while she's there — only when she needs his help, and even then only after she leaves.

"Is it bright where you are?"

"I — I don't get what you're asking…"

He smiles lovingly and shakes his head, clearing the cobwebs.

Sleeping beauty awoke with a kiss — _you make me real _— and she did, too, if she's honest about what happened the previous year. The irony: it was _him _that brought her back with his passion and intensity and a body so alive.

She leans into him, her arm pressing against his as their knees knock, and she kisses him and thinks about how this is It — how she's going to bring him back to life this way, how she's just returning the favor, how she's _helping _—

There was the softness of his lips as she took his mouth with hers, then there was nothing. Her eyes creep open in expectation of — what? — of something, but he's gone.

+

__

Am I flesh to you?

His voice follows her home that night, trails her into bed, wraps itself around her body and tangles its fingers in her hair; it wakes with her the next day — _thank god it's Friday _— and cooks her breakfast in the shape of a sixteen-year old sister; it drives her to work and sits quietly next to her as she flips through files and councils students; it nags her during her coffee break — _feed on flesh, _my _flesh _— and finally disappears, but not before pushing her down the long, empty hall and through the door that says "No Students Allowed."

"Spike!?" she calls when she can't find him, but no reply comes, except for the darkness sending her cry back to her. "Are you here?" And that, too, echoes — bouncing off one wall and the next, slipping through tunnels and air vents, around corners, darker corners than she's ever seen, until it returns to her like a messenger bird, _alone_.

A noise in the distance sends a sudden shiver up her spine and she starts jogging towards the place where it came from. Through this passageway and that chamber, she follows the odd _crash! _as it slowly dies away. Then it's dead, but it doesn't matter — around a corner she finds her troublemakers — only they're not spiny demons with mind-bending powers or a bloodthirsty manifestation of a vengeful Cassie — it's just two students making out.

She steps forward, ready to punish them — the power to give detention rearing its ugly head, again — but a hand on her shoulder stops her.

"Let the lovebirds be," the hand says — but, of course, it's not the hand that's talking, it's Spike. "They've been down here since mornin' bell. No worries. M'keeping the monsters at bay; they rattle the chains in their cage, but I'm not listening to them, anymore —"

She turns to him, but focuses on the wall behind him. "I'm sorry. For yesterday. For hurting you. For _always_…well, hurting you. Ever since…" His finger tips her chin up so she's looking him in the face.

"It's okay," he says with enough sincerity to make up for her bumbling absurdity. Then, almost jokingly, he croons, "I forgive you."

She hooks her hand on his wrist as his shaky fingers trace her jawbone. She holds still, feeling the shivers slide along her bones, just beneath the skin, and she lets these echoes ring deep for a little while, before turning back to the students.

"They don't have hall passes," she says, craning her head back and smiling at the subtle sparks she finds in his eyes —

__

What do you do when you know maybe you can't help? —

She takes his hand and leads him back towards the stairway and together they sit in the quiet, in the echoing silence, alone —

__

You listen.

THE END.

Notes (2): Been here, done this — eh? Yeah, yeah, it's been done before, and it's been done _better_, but — well, admission was free, so you can't have your money back… ;) 'Til next time.


End file.
